by Jan Moran
He nodded solemnly, his full mouth returning her smile with the briefest smile of his own before they slipped out of the custodian’s office.
Alessia was careful to lock the door behind her, and then they were headed down the long hall that led to the staff offices. It was here that the numerous cubicles for those who worked full time at the hotel were located and Alessia had her own private office, which she rarely used. She was too in love with being able to work from her laptop in the gardens to care much for her basement space, even with its faux skylight.
At the very end of the hall was a door that led to the office of Bruno Ferrari. Alessia paused to look back at Luca, struck by a sudden pang of loss. She remembered Bruno’s frequent, warm smiles and his religious trips up and down the rows of ripe California grapes. She certainly missed him, even if she was still a long way from understanding why he’d made the decisions he had.
“Here.” She extended the key to Luca, reading the apprehension in his eyes. “You should be the one to do it.”
Hesitating, Luca reached out to take the key from her.
When he carefully moved past her to fit it into the lock, Alessia held her breath. She had no idea why, as it wasn’t like she hadn’t seen the inside of Bruno’s office hundreds of times over the years. But, she reminded herself, she hadn’t been there since he died.
The room looked little different from the way it always had, save that many of Bruno’s things had been packed into boxes that stood stacked in various piles. Books that had adorned the bookcase for decades were absent, but the furniture was still suffused with the lingering scent of leather and spice.
The light wood-paneled room was a place she’d frequented in her childhood, sent there by her father to retrieve his partner for business meetings. Now, even with its owner absent, she could still somehow feel his presence.
She watched Luca make his way hesitantly into the room, gazing about it with tentative, searching eyes. Alessia only hoped that whatever he found was enough to assuage his curiosity and soothe his uncertain heart.
* * *
It smelled like Bruno.
Though it had been years, decades even, since he’d seen his father, Luca still remembered exactly how he’d smelled. Spice, cardamom and cinnamon, along with the scent of worn leather. The smell immediately triggered the few memories he had of his father. They were fuzzy, old images in the back of his mind, memories of being lifted into the air, cradled in a strong embrace, and invited to share a sip of forbidden coffee. He had never really known Bruno Ferrari, but still, those few, scant memories lingered.
As he moved into the office, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was somehow an intruder, that his old man wouldn’t have wanted him here. He quickly decided that that was nonsense. Bruno had literally brought him here with the will he’d written. Luca pushed those feelings aside, glancing back at Alessia before moving deeper into the room.
It was as close, Luca realized, to meeting his father in the flesh as he would ever come now. And so, for a moment, he looked with interest over the few books still littering the table. There were a few economics volumes, along with some sci-fi works. He was surprised to find that his father’s taste in books ran along the same lines his own.
His lips pulled together in a tight line, Luca moved over to his father’s desk. If he could find anything to answer his numerous questions, he supposed it would be here. The problem was that he had no idea what he was looking for.
“You never made anything easy, did you, old man?” The words slipped out on a low murmur as he sank into the chair where Bruno Ferrari had once gone about his daily routine. Luca’s eyes scanned over the nearly bare surface of the desk. There was really nothing here but dust and a few errant paperclips.
With a sigh, he pulled out the top drawer of the desk and found it empty. Then the two additional drawers on the left-hand side. They were piled with office supplies – printer paper, pens, staplers, and the like. It was only when Luca moved to check the last two drawers that he froze, his eyes locked on the first object he found.
It was a framed photo.
He stared at it; he remembered the day it was taken. How could he forget? He’d spoken to his father on the phone, and Bruno, who at that point he hadn’t seen for a good six months, had promised that he’d be there to see his son’s little league game. Luca, being only seven years old, had known nothing of the impossibility of such a promise. How could Bruno have flown from California to New York in a few short hours? But Luca had taken Bruno at his word, and when he hadn’t shown up at any point during the whole game, he’d been heartbroken. In the picture, he’d attempted a brave smile, but his red, chubby face was streaked with tears.
Carefully, Luca reached into the drawer to remove the photo, a deep frown carved into his face. Why would his father have kept this? To remind him of his failures as a parent? After a moment of staring at his own face, Luca caught sight of an envelope beneath the frame. It was marked with only one word: Luca
For a moment, he couldn’t tear his eyes from his father’s familiar, sprawling script. So it was true, Bruno had brought him here with a purpose in mind. And he’d somehow known that Luca wouldn’t merely sell his shares without setting foot on the property.
He was almost scared to read the damn thing. A man he hadn’t seen in decades knew more about him than he knew about himself. He set the picture on the desk before him, then pulled the envelope from the drawer and closed it.
From her place in a leather chair across the room, Alessia arched a brow at his find, but said nothing. Silence reigned in the expansive office. After a moment, Luca forced himself to tear the envelope open, swallowing as he began to read.
Luca,
If you’re reading this, it means that you’ve come all this way, and I can only hope it won’t be for nothing. I won’t mince words, my boy; I’ve been nothing of a father to you. I haven’t been present for a single important moment of your entire life. But I want you to know that I watched. It doesn’t redeem me, but I was there. I read about your heading the business club in middle school. I followed the papers you wrote during high school that won international prizes. I downloaded every article you ever wrote. When you began your startup, I watched your trials and tribulations with my heart in my throat, and when you graced the cover of Fortune magazine for the first time, I was in awe that I could have ever been party to the creation of a man like you. You are more of a man than I’ve ever been, Luca. You take responsibility for everything you do—your successes and your failures. You were one of the most successful things I could ever have achieved, and I was never there for you, or your mother. For that, I’m sorrier than words could ever express.
As I sit here writing my will, I realize that the closest I will come to ever really knowing you is through magazine and newspaper articles and editorials. Through tabloids and gossip columns. I sift through the nonsense and chattel to find tidbits I think might really define you. I never realized how much ridiculousness the media peddles. It’s something I’ve never subscribed to. But when I leaf through countless magazines and articles, there does seem to be one common undercurrent in which I can believe - something I’ve seen you do in countless pictures, during interviews, and on television, and that’s drink wine. In that, you’re more like me than I would have thought.
Which is why I’m leaving you my Costa and Ferrari shares.
I’m telling you now that the winery is a family business in every sense of the word. It was my mistake to neglect my own family for the one here, but believe me when I tell you that the decision to leave you half was not made lightly. If you’re not willing to devote yourself, sell the shares to Antonio and Alessia. Keep the business in their hands. They’re amazing people, and they love the winery like a child. The business needs people willing to put their hearts and souls into it, because that’s what it gives back. Costa and Ferrari is love, which is probably why I’ve thought of you every day I’ve been here.
Whate
ver decision you make, know that even though I’ve never showed you or your mother the attention you needed in the ways I should have, I love both of you very deeply, and I wish you the greatest of happiness in this life.
Your father,
Bruno Ferrari
Luca read the letter through once, and then again, struggling to make sense of it. For years, his mother had insisted that his father cared nothing for either of them, and he’d never done anything to prove their assumptions wrong. Now, the only thing Bruno had to speak for him was a single dying gesture born out of years of research on the son he’d never personally gotten to know.
Everything he’d ever worked for, he’d given to Luca to do with as he wished.
Luca didn’t know quite how he felt. Certainly, he’d hoped to find some kind of apology, an explanation for why his father had been so absent from his life. Instead, what he’d found was that Bruno had devoted his life to something else entirely and wanted Luca to consider doing the same.
Love, he’d said. Costa and Ferrari was love.
“Luca?”
He jerked his head up to see Alessia standing next to him, addressing him in a soft voice. Her hair was tangled from their lovemaking, her eyes wide and questioning as she looked down at him. “Are you all right?”
He released a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. In that moment, he wanted nothing more than to sweep her into his arms, carry her back to his room, and have his way with her—again. Over and over, until he could make sense of his father and his final wishes. “Fine,” he managed, folding the letter and replacing it in its envelope. As much as he appreciated what Alessia had done for him, he didn’t know if he was ready to share this with anyone yet. “We can go.” He rose from his father’s desk, the deceased man’s scent lingering in his nostrils, and turned to her with a small smile. “I got what I came for.”
Alessia looked from him to the letter in his hand, and her own lips curved into a warm grin. “Good.” With that, she took his hand in hers, leading him from his father’s domain. When they were outside, he handed over the key, feeling somewhat bereft as he watched her lock the room securely.
He’d found what he’d hoped to find; it just wasn’t what he’d wanted. It wasn’t a long, drawn-out plea for forgiveness, an explanation for Bruno never getting to know his only son. It was only a reassurance that he’d loved Luca from right where he was and a statement that this winery had taught him how to do that. Something that Luca found difficult to believe.
He allowed Alessia to lead him back up to her room, where she used the master key to reset her room code and shook her head. “All that just to reset a door.” She looked up at Luca with an amused smile on her lips, only to sober at the sight of his sad expression. “Luca…” she began hesitantly. “Why don’t I go back to my room for now.”
He began to protest. “Alessia, I apologize. I didn’t mean—“
“I know.” Alessia’s eyes held no accusation as she gazed up at him. “Of course you didn’t. “ She reached up to cup his cheek and smiled as he looked her over: tanned skin, flushed cheeks, and earnest eyes. “I’m not going anywhere. After all, our rooms are right next to each other.”
He desired her like nothing else, both for understanding and for allowing the space he needed, even if he didn’t particularly want to be alone with his demons. Lowering his head, Luca pressed his lips to hers softly, briefly, and wondered what tomorrow would bring for them. He had yet to make a decision about his shares of the winery, and that would eventually put the same strain on them as before.
But for tonight, he needed to think about what his father had written, to decide how much to believe and how much was a last bid for forgiveness from a dying man.
Chapter 16
Luca slept little that night. He read his father’s letter at least four more times before he simply stared at the ceiling as he tried in vain to remember the man who had devoted everything he had to the winery. Luca had spent so much of his youth hoping and praying for a father that it was hard for him to come to terms with the fact that Bruno had never intended to come home to him.
This place was his home. The Costa and Ferrari winery.
Could Luca forgive him for that? And for asking Luca to pledge his own life to the same cause?
Perhaps the former, but never the latter. Luca had put his heart and soul into his own company. Already, after just a couple of weeks in California, he ached to get back to where he was most comfortable – in his office, with his desk piled high with files and correspondence awaiting his attention. As much as he loved wine, and as entranced as he was with the winery and how it operated, he didn’t know if he could ever make it his home.
He had come here to learn about his father, and now that he had, shouldn’t he be able to make a decision? The right thing to do would be to sign over his shares to Alessia and Antonio and return to New York. It would be the quickest, cleanest, and easiest way of getting back to his old life, in which the winery and his father were complete non-issues. But somehow, as he stared at the airline’s website, he found that he couldn’t move up his flight home.
He still had so many questions, questions that were largely unanswered. What had his father meant when he spoke of the winery as simply being love? Certainly the owners were devoted to it, but what, exactly, had made his father abandon his own, very real, family to stay here? It was a question no one but Bruno himself could answer, and he was long gone.
Shouldn’t Luca be as well?
It was a question he contemplated the following morning over a breakfast of crab cake, poached eggs, and French toast. Luca barely tasted the food, so absorbed was he in his own thoughts. It wasn’t until he caught sight of Alessia through the dining room windows that he forced himself back to the present.
Today, she wore a white shift dress with pink flats, her hair pulled up into a carefree ponytail as she wound along the garden path with her father. He led her past the front of the hotel, clearly expounding upon some subject or other as they walked, his cane tapping rhythmically on the ground. They were partners, Luca knew, in business and in life, and they’d done it without ripping each other’s throats out.
Here was Luca, resenting his father, and he barely knew him.
But it wasn’t the winery that had cemented Alessia’s and her father’s relationship. It was the people themselves. Both father and daughter were remarkably levelheaded, and as such, they worked well together, ensuring that the winery ran smoothly, even after Bruno’s death. Luca stared at Alessia’s infectious smile, the way she shook her head as she clearly humored her father in whatever tangent he was spouting, and couldn’t help the small smile that rose to his own lips. She never ceased to amaze him.
Her attachment to the winery, to her father, and to the duties she performed was both humbling and awe-inspiring to witness. The winery had become a part of her. As far as he could tell, she neglected her social life so that she might ensure the winery’s continuing success. The only exception she’d made was for him, and oh, what an exception she’d made.
Luca’s eyes darkened when he remembered the previous night and how she’d clung to him as he worshipped every inch of her body. How long had he imagined having her in his arms, crying out his name as he slipped inside her willing body?
His single night with Alessia had been everything he’d imagined and more, and now he was hooked. It was positively criminal of him to imagine spiriting her into some private corner to have his way with her as he watched her speak with her father, but he couldn’t help it. She was in his blood, like a fine wine, and perhaps that was why he couldn’t walk away. He hadn’t quite had his fill of Alessia.
Alessia and her father finished their talk, and she waved goodbye to him as he headed back to his office. She turned towards the hotel to make her way into the restaurant. When she entered, she was greeted by the waitstaff, all of whom she knew by name. After she spoke to each and every one of them, her eyes came to rest on Luca. As if she knew exac
tly what he was thinking, her cheeks flushed lightly. She didn’t come over to him, however, but turned to make her way toward reception.
Several female servers looked from their boss to the dark-haired man at the opposite side of the room and immediately broke into fits of giggling. Luca could only smirk, going back to his breakfast with decidedly more gusto.
He couldn’t decipher his father’s cryptic letter; what he could do was pursue Alessia, who intrigued him more with every passing moment and who had caught his attention long before he’d known how dangerous she could be to him.
He would enjoy every moment with her until he came to a decision and left her to the California sun and the winery she loved, free of the complications he’d caused.
Luca finished his breakfast quickly, but by the time he’d made it to reception, the stammering woman there could only tell him that Alessia was in a meeting and wouldn’t be available until late afternoon. He then ventured into the warm California sun to pass the time. He walked the vineyard, meandering through rows of grapes he had previously traversed with Alessia by his side.
He went into the distillery, marveling, as he always did, at the huge cask that had contained a ten-year vintage, empty after the charity event that had taken place the previous night. He sampled a few of the grapes, both ripe and ripening, and spent an hour just watching the winery go through its everyday paces.
There was a kind of leisurely relaxation here that he would admit he seldom found in New York. Perhaps it was this feeling, which Alessia loved, that had drawn his father in and kept him here for the better part of forty years. Luca might never know.
He’d made his way back to the hotel’s expansive gardens by the time Alessia found him. She’d let down her ponytail, and her hair fell down about her face, her small, secretive smile one of the most captivating things he’d ever laid eyes on.
“Were you looking for me?”
He chuckled softly, all thoughts of his father driven from his mind. “Something like that.”